[Religion and Revolution]: Mod Development

[Schmiddie]

Ok, that you for that explanation

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

I have written a summary of the features we include from TAC in our Overview.
(I did not list single fixes, AI improvements, graphical improvements, text improvements or balancing changes since there were just too many.)

[Schmiddie]

Originally Posted by orlanth

Ok, that sounds like a good plan. I have put some building nifs in the Transfer/buildings folders so take a look at those to possibly use in the new buildings you're adding.

I had a look a the buildings in the transfer folder.

Wow, there are some very nice buildings...I think we could use a lot of them.

However, we have a lot of choices for new buildings now

[Schmiddie]

@Schmiddie:
Could you take a look at the buttons for Sailcloth when you got some time.
I am not totally happy with them.
(They are actually a combination of Rope and Sailcloth KJ once made for me.)

I have made new buttons for sailcloth and uploaded them to SVN...

[raystuttgart]

Originally Posted by Schmiddie

I have made new buttons for sailcloth and uploaded them to SVN...

Great.

This evening I will upload the next big package for Economy.
(Cattle, Sheep, ....)

[raystuttgart]

@team:

I have uploaded my work for Cattle, Sheep, Hides, Wool, Leather and Wool Cloth.

There are still several open todos for this package.

1. The Slaughterhouse (Level 3 of SPECIALBUILDING_MEAT) needs to get its own graphics.
It is currently using the same graphics as Butchery (Level 2 of SPECIALBUILDING_MEAT).

2. Tanner's House (Level 1 Building of SPECIALBUILDING_LEATHER) needs to get its own graphics.
It is currently using the same graphics as Tannery (Level 2 Building of SPECIALBUILDING_LEATHER).

3. Large Dyery (Level 3 of SPECIALBUILDING_COLOURED_CLOTH) needs to get its own graphics.
It is currently using the same graphics as Dyery (Level 2 Building of SPECIALBUILDING_COLOURED_CLOTH).

4. Butcher's House, Butchery and Slaughterhouse need to get new graphics for CityScreen.

5. A lot of texts still need to be written. Mostly the Strategy entries.
(I will take care of most of them.)

@Schmiddie:
Could you help out with the graphics ?

[raystuttgart]

Originally Posted by raystuttgart

2. Tanner's House (Level 1 Building of SPECIALBUILDING_LEATHER) needs to get its own graphics.
It is currently using the same graphics as Tannery (Level 2 Building of SPECIALBUILDING_LEATHER).

@Schmiddie:

Just a suggestion for this.

If you could remove the left house in the graphics, that are currently implemented for Tanner's House, it would already be perfect.

Then we would have a nice "growth effect" with each level.
(Tanners's House, Tannery, Leather Factory.)

[Schmiddie]

Ok.

and..ähm, ray, on the map is something wrong with the new bonus resources (cattle, sheep). I see big red balls instead of the graphic on the map...

Can you check this?

EDIT: I have updated the butcher, butchery and slaughterhouse, tanner, tannery and leather factory graphics and buttons.

[orlanth]

BTW I see that Deer can't provide any Food at all anymore. Could we maybe enable Hunters to get Fur and a small amount of Food using MYP? With so many different yields now, it would be good to make it less difficult to get cities that can support multiple tiles and buildings.

[raystuttgart]

Originally Posted by Schmiddie

Can you check this?

Sure.
(I will check this evening, when I am back home.)

Originally Posted by Schmiddie

EDIT: I have updated the butcher, butchery and slaughterhouse, tanner, tannery and leather factory graphics and buttons.

Great.

Originally Posted by orlanth

BTW I see that Deer can't provide any Food at all anymore. Could we maybe enable Hunters to get Fur and a small amount of Food using MYP ?

This is planned and the reason why I removed the Food bonus of deer.
(I did not want Farmer to get additional Food from Deer.)
I just did not implement MYC/P yet.

Some professions on plots will also give food.
(For example Hunter and Seals Hunter.)

Same for some professions in buildings.
(For example the Butcher professions.)

[raystuttgart]

@team:

So ok, since the package for "Cattle, Sheep, Hides, Wool, Leather and Wool Cloth" is almost done,
we could discuss further Yields and Productionlines.

We currently have 40 tradable Yields.
54 tradable Yields is the max we should do, because of Screens.
4 tradable Yields is the min I would like reserve for later features like Health.

This leaves a max of 10 further tradable Yields we could implement for Release 1.

Some things that were already implemented in the Preview:

Grapes -> Wine
Barley -> Beer
Red Pepper -> Spices
Valuable Wood -> Furniture
Salt
Natural Rubber
Walruss Ivory

So eventuall we could do this:

Alternative 1:

Spoiler:

Barley (available on Flatland of Grasland) -- Building Tavern --> Beer
Grapes (available on Hills of Savanna) -- Building Tavern --> Wine
Red Pepper (available on Hills of Prairie) -- Building Market --> Spices
Valuable Wood (available on Taiga and Jungle) -- Building Market --> Furniture
Salt (availalbe on Desert)
Natural Rubber (available on Jungle)

-------------

Summary:

1. We would only have one more Specialbuilding and thus use up only one more slot in CityScreen
2. By leaving 4 yields for later Releases we would have used up the other 50.
3. Of course, there would be Bonus-Resources, Professions and Specialists involved.
4. We would still have a good balancing between the Terrains.
5. Graphics for all of this exist.

Alternative 2:

Spoiler:

Barley (available on Flatland of Grasland) -- Building Tavern --> Beer
Grapes (available on Hills of Savanna) -- Building Tavern --> Wine
Red Pepper (available on Hills of Prairie) -- Building Market --> Spices
Walruss Ivory (available with MYP from Walruss, which only appears high north in Tundra regions)
Natural Rubber (available on Jungle)

-------------

Summary:

1. We would only have one more Specialbuilding and thus use up only one more slot in CityScreen
2. By leaving 4 yields for later Releases we would have used up 48 yields and still have 2 yields open.
3. Of course, there would be Bonus-Resources, Professions and Specialists involved.
4. We would still have a good balancing between the Terrains.
5. Graphics for all of this exist.

However:

I am absolutely not sure about this myself.

Maybe somebody got a better idea.

But remember:
We should ensure balancing of the terrains.

Edit:

Of course, we could also not introduce any more tradable yields.

[Schmiddie]

I would highly prefer Alternative 1.

However, I think It would be more realiatic to have a brewery for beer, a distillery (we could discuss to implement also Whiskey (needs wheat)) which could be used for wine or whiskey; a cabinetmaker's workshop could be used for making furniture and a saline for making salt. I know we would have four more special buildings, but...why not.

I would like it and I would take care of the graphics, if needed.

[raystuttgart]

So ok, what about this variant ?
(Then let us go large ...)

1. Valuable Wood (available on Taiga and Jungle) --> Furniture

New SPECIAL_BUILDING_FURNITURE with 3 Levels.
Specialist Valuable Wood: Expert Lumberjack (same as normal Wood)
Specialist Furniture: Master Cabinetmaker

2. Red Pepper (available on Hills of Prairie) --> Spices

New SPECIAL_BUILDING_SPICES with 3 Levels.
Specialist Red Pepper: Expert Red Pepper Planter
Specialist Spices: Master Spice Trader

3. Raw Salt (availalbe on Desert) --> Salt

Also uses SPECIAL_BUILDING_SPICES
Specialist Raw Salt: Expert Salt Miner
Specialist Salt: also Master Spice Trader

4. Grapes (available on Hills of Grassland and Savanna) --> Wine

New SPECIAL_BUILDING_WINE with 3 Levels.
Specialist Grapes: Expert Grape Picker
Specialist Wine: Master Vintager

5. Barley (available on Flatland of Grasland and Prairie) --> Beer

New SPECIAL_BUILDING_BEER with 3 Levels.
Specialist Barley: Expert Farmer (same as for Food)
Specialist Beer: Master Brewer

6. Market would still simply unlock domestic market for normal goods.

7. New SPECIALBUILDING_TAVERN to unlock selling of alcohol in Domestic Market.
(This building might get further functionality later on.)

Comments:

With this, we would have used up all available space for new yields.
(Reserving 4 for future features like Health or Rebuild Military.)

The Terrains and Regions would be well balanced to my opinion.
(When looking at the complete list of tradable yields.)

We would introduce 10 more Yields and 5 new SpecialBuildings.

Graphics:

For Beer and Wine I already have really great buildings.
I also have good graphics for Tavern.
For the rest (Spices and Furniture), we would need to find or create some.

The Unit graphics of the Specialists are no problem, I have great graphics for all of them.

[Schmiddie]

This sounds very good.

Rebuild Military - does this include yields for gunpowder or coal for example? Or should we maybe abdicate for furniture and spices to ensure that we have enough yields for rebuilding the military sector?

[raystuttgart]

Originally Posted by Schmiddie

This sounds very good.

Great.

Originally Posted by Schmiddie

Rebuild Military - does this include yields for gunpowder or coal for example?

Maybe.
Or something like Swords.

Originally Posted by Schmiddie

Or should we maybe abdicate for furniture and spices to ensure that we have enough yields for rebuilding the military sector?

Leaving out Furniture or Spices would unbalance the Terrains again.
(I really want to keep the Terrains balanced.)

I suggest, we implement it like this for Release 1.

If we later on need more than 4 "spaces for (tradable) Yields" in Screens we could

A) simply cramp them in the Screens (which might look a little ugly)
or
B) maybe remove "Raw Salt -> Salt"

However, I would really like to keep a "Safety Buffer of 4 (tradable) Yields".
(54 yields was the point, where I started getting problems with the Screens, meaning they started to look ugly.)

For now, I think we can implement it this way, if the team agrees.

[Schmiddie]

I agree.

[raystuttgart]

Originally Posted by Schmiddie

I agree.

I will probably start working on this on the weekend.
(If no team member disagrees until this night.)

I will start with Wine and Beer.
(Since I have all building graphics for that.)

Maybe you could be searching / working on the buildings for Furniture and Spices until I finished that ?
(I don't think I have good buildings for those Productionlines.)

[Robert Surcouf]

Hi everyone,

I've read all the posts but I have not thought about everything in details. I've been busy working (real life !), posting a few messages on French forum and reading some codes (for Wind and Storms features)... Everything seems OK to me and even quite interesting !

I've updated our SVN network. I've fixed the damage on Storm plots and even improved it.
Damage not only occurs at the end of turn but when passing through storm plots.
However, this may be a little tricky. It actually seems quite good to me, but I want to be sure (my solution may be too harsh on our poor ships or maybe too soft... )

Each time you cross a storm plot you get 25% damage, so you can only cross 4 storms theoretically (actually the slower your ship is the less storms you can cross. A galion can't even cross two storms in a row)...
But things are a little more complicated. You need 4 Movement points to move to a storm. So when a frigate or a sloop tries to cross two storms in a row, this is what happens:
- It crosses first storm plot (-25% health)
- It gets stuck on second storm plot (NO DAMAGE until you end your turn. Is this OK? )
- When you end your turn you get a second damage (-25% health)
- When you get away from the second storm plot you get hit again (-25%)
So, at the end our ship has only 25% health left.

I have three questions:
- Should damage occur
a) when we exit a storm plot and/or stay on a storm plot (this is what I've done now)
b) when we enter a plot and/or stay on a storm plot (it's easy to do too)
c) only when we exit a storm plot (seems strange... we could stay forever in a storm )
d) only when we enter a storm plot (seems strange... we could stay forever in a storm )

[raystuttgart]

Originally Posted by Robert Surcouf

Everything seems OK to me and even quite interesting !

Great.

Originally Posted by Robert Surcouf

I've updated our SVN network. I've fixed the damage on Storm plots and even improved it.

Just for safety:
Did you do a merge with the last updated to DLL I made yesterday ?
(I am not sure if it was necessary.)

Originally Posted by Robert Surcouf

b) when we enter a plot and/or stay on a storm plot (it's easy to do too)

Definitely this variant.

[raystuttgart]

@team:

I had accidently missed to upload the graphics for resources Cattle and Sheep.
(This is corrected now.)